Recently, federal and state solicitation laws and regulations have mandated that a consumer, who expresses a desire not to be solicited by telephone or other electronic media such as electronic mail, not be called or e-mailed. By regulation, such as the United States Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Telemarketing Sales Rules (TSR), a business must maintain a list of telephone numbers for such consumers, known as a “Do-Not-Call” (DNC) list, and take appropriate measures to ensure that outgoing calls to telephone numbers on a DNC list are somehow blocked. The federal government is also considering the establishment of a federal “Do-Not-E-Mail” list to enable a consumer to prevent electronic mail solicitations.
The DNC lists can include one or more lists specific to a particular business, as well as state-wide, national and industry-imposed lists such as the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Telephone Preference Service (TPS) list. A single violation of a federal and/or State DNC regulation may result in a substantial fine. Thus, DNC compliance management is a particularly critical and challenging issue for businesses that rely on telephone solicitations as a core marketing tool.